New Delhi ,

Prime Minister’s pet project of connecting 30,000 ‘uncovered villages’ in 500 days, under the BharatNet project, has not taken off in most of the Gram Panchayats.

The Cabinet on July 27, 2022, had approved the project ‘Saturation of 4G mobile coverage of Uncovered Villages’ across the country (around 30,000 villages) at a cost of ₹30,620.49 crore. The project was supposed to have been rolled out in 500 days (now already passed 514 days) by Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL).

“In most of these 30,000 villages which have not been connected yet, the broadband penetration continues to be very low,” a source privy to the development told businessline.

No update

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has also not updated any status on this project due to the delay, the official said.

Says the DoT website: “The project will provide 4G mobile services in 24,680 uncovered villages in remote and difficult areas. The project has a provision to include 20 per cent additional villages on account of rehabilitation, new-settlements, withdrawal of services by existing operators etc. In addition, 6,279 villages having only 2G or 3G connectivity shall be upgraded to 4G.”

The project will be executed by BSNL using Bharat’s 4G technology stack and will be funded through USOF, it added.

BharatNet project

The BharatNet project was first approved by the Cabinet in October 2011 to connect more than six-lakh villages and 2.50 lakh Gram Panchayats (GPs). It is being executed by Bharat Broadband Network (BBNL), which is now part of BSNL, as a special purpose vehicle (SPV), and will be partnering with village level entrepreneurs (VLEs) to provide the connectivity. The project is delayed just like several other projects under the Universal Service Obligation Fund (under Department of Telecommunications), which is rechristened to “Digital Bharat Nidhi” in the Telecommunications Act, 2023, for funding the projects.

Phase-II was approved in 2017 and funding for the project in both phases has been ₹42,068 crore (exclusive of GST, Octroi and local taxes).

As of December 11, it has reached 2,08,635 GPs and 6,75,466 Km of optical-fiber cable (OFC) has been laid. The Cabinet in August also had approved ₹1.39 lakh crore budget for the project and till now Uttar Pradesh has received the highest budget allocation of ₹4,274.66 crore (up by 11.9 per cent as compared to last year), followed by Maharashtra at ₹4,089.23 crore (up 11.4 per cent), Madhya Pradesh at ₹3,675 crore (up 10.2 per cent) and Gujarat ₹3,035.56 crore (up 8.4 per cent).

Additionally, 782,366 Fibre-To-The-Home (FTTH) connections are commissioned and 104,675 Wi-Fi hotspots are installed to ensure last-mile connectivity. Companies like Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio are undertaking the projects in various locations of the country.